Christmas '09

Christmas is almost here. I can't believe the year has sped by like it has.  Are you all ready? 
Things are tight all over this year and not looking like it will be getting better anytime soon either. Here's my example.  Our city has a really cool agency called The Christmas Bureau.  They take the names of family's that need help with Christmas. 
They then list them and find families, company's and such to "Adopt a Family" for the holidays. Sponsors donate the Christmas meal, toys for the kids, whatever they can afford to do.  They came up short last year by about 5 families. This year they are having a really hard time finding enough sponsors. Here it is two days away from Christmas and there are still 600 families with no sponsors. It's getting bad out there folks and we all know it.


The thing is- people are hurting all over the country.  People out of work.  The underemployed.  People losing their homes.  People going hungry, getting their utilities shut off for nonpayment.  How many of us are only a week or a month or six weeks away from being homeless if we were to lose our jobs?  
And folks, from the looks of things, its not going to get better any time in the near future.  So many things coming at us from all directions that it is sometimes hard to just stay focused.  


Here's what I have been thinking though. I think I am going to take a timeout from all the negative energy out there for at least a few days. I am tired of worrying about all the things that are happening at an amazing pace in this world. I won't go into all of that just now... I'm not trying to rant here.  Most of us here on these blogs know the score.  We read.  We investigate.  We question. And sometimes, for me, its just too much knowledge for a person to process.
With everything cascading around us wouldn't it be a wonderful thing to just take a step back.  Just breathe.  Enjoy the holidays with your family and friends. Make memories.  Remember these days.  Someday you may be telling your grandchildren about the Christmas of '09 and how things were "In the old days".

" But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas-time, when it has come round-apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that-as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"

Excerpt from A Christmas Carol